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Split Fiction
The Man, the Myth, the Legend - Josef Fares Interview at Nordic Game 2025
We spoke with Hazelight's creative director to pick his brain about Split Fiction, his former works, and what the future holds too.
Audio transcription
"Hi, I'm standing here with a guy that probably needs no introduction, but I'll do it anyway.
It's Josef Fares. Of course he has made Split Fiction, It Takes Two, and many other great games about co-op. And I think the question about co-op is an interesting one, and you talked about it in your talk earlier, and I wanted to know why do you think that usually when you make a successful game other studios rush to copy your concept, but there's really no other studio, at least none of the larger studios, that have copied your concept. Why do you think that is?
I was as surprised as you. We've been talking about it a lot, especially also because we're selling so many copies. There's obviously huge people that love these kind of games."
"Wasn't that in the beginning, but now it is. But I'm not really sure. I think one of the things that it's hard to do, obviously, not only from a creative perspective, but from a technical perspective. I also think that people are doing it now, but it's probably going to come out maybe later. I hope they're doing it. I really hope to see it, because we release a game every three or four years, and a lot of our fans out there would love to play any similes of that, so I recommend others to do it. Even if it's not as good as a Hazelight game, it's still going to..."
"Just if it's good enough, I think it's going to be good. But I don't know why. I'm actually quite surprised myself. You were originally in filmmaking, then you went into the games industry. Looking back at that transition, what has surprised you the most about the games industry?
What I love about it is that it's quite new, and there's so much from a creative perspective that can be discovered. What I think we should learn more is how to develop a game, both from a production perspective, how to do a game, but also from a narrative, how to write the game, or how to create the game. It's kind of fun being part of the learning process. Movies have come way further in their how to produce it, and make it, and write it, and everything, while games have a lot to discover. I see that as something positive, as something fun to be part of, pretty much. Your last two games, you have had two protagonists, you have two players, but have you ever considered maybe adding a third or even a fourth player?
Not really right now. I think if you have a third or fourth, it would take three or four screens. I think that would become too much from a technical standpoint, and just too much for the narrative, to have unique characters. No, not really. One of the themes about the game Split Fiction is this corporation stealing ideas from other people, and there's been a lot of debate about generative AI also in game development. How do you view that topic? Well, it's obviously a very sensitive topic, and I think, I mean, AI will always probably be part of our role from now on, so I really don't know what will happen. If you ask me in five years, I will know what AI is about."
"I think right now it's not good enough to implement in video games, to be honest. I think it's too early, but I think in the future it might be. I just hope it's done in the best way possible, so people don't lose jobs and everything like that. But at the end of the day, I hope actually we can use AI as great tools to use in video game development. In a sense, we have been using AI in video games before, like, you know, AI systems and enemies, and we've had generatives in the world building up, so we've kind of had it in video games before. I hope it goes more towards that way, where we can use it as a tool to make better games. That's what my hope is. But who knows what happens? I don't know, man. I'm not an AI expert."
"So your release, Split Fiction, earlier this year got a great reception, and soon it's also coming out on the Nintendo Switch 2. What are your thoughts about this upcoming release?
Well, for the Switch 2, I think it's great to be part of the Switch. I mean, it has been a huge success on Switch, and hopefully Switch 2 does well as well and gets out to people. I mean, I'm a huge Nintendo fan, so for me, a new console. I mean, I love all the Nintendo games pretty much, so having our games on that console, I don't see why not. It's just going to be fun to release the game for that, so it's going to be great. And it's not that far away, a couple of weeks, I think. Yeah, and a final question. Four years ago, you won Game of the Year at the Game Awards with It Takes Two, and now you have released Split Fiction. Do you think you will manage to win again? I think this year is harder, but I think we'll be nominated. We'll definitely win some awards, I think, and at the end of the day, I mean, yeah, we'll win some awards. I'm not sure it's going to be Game of the Year, though, because there's a lot of great games out there this year, but Split Fiction is definitely one of them, yes."
"Well, thank you for speaking to us, Josef. Thank you so much, man."
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